Friday, November 22, 2013

Saving one's bacon, stitching-wise

Necessity is the mother of invention, the old saying goes.  And that's what produced this cuff on a needlepoint stocking that Needle Nicely is stitching for a customer.  She had started it years ago and all the fibers were pulled, but not quite enough of everything.  The cuff was to have been a continuation of the background green (666) Paternayan yarn, but we suspected there wasn't enough green so we started stitching the stocking just below the cuff.  Sure enough, we didn't have enough to do the cuff in basketweave 666.  So Allison, the stitcher, came up with this creative "save the day" idea.
She alternated a single row of continental done in 666 yarn with a slanted gobelin over 2 in white DMC perle 5.  It produces a wonderful effect.  Then, to cover the black line drawn to indicate the cuff, she stitched a row of continental using Balger gold metallic.  This treatment would look good as a background for a stocking.  I'll have to remember it for future use.  (And thank you, Allison for the great save.)  This stocking won't be assembled by Christmas, but it will be stitched and the grandmother can hang it  pinned to fabric in the shape of a stocking. 

On another note, I have to refer everyone to a blog entry I read today (sorry, I still can't do links) for http://www.hugsandstitchesbysuzanne.blogspot.com.  (I don't know why that isn't blue...I'll check)  Her entry for 11/22/13 is a video of a singing turkey that everyone needs to bookmark.  I've already listened to it 3 times and my husband wonders what I'm doing!  (You can also google it at It's turkey day, live it up, but I wanted to give Suzanne credit for finding it--it's wonderful!).


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